


Not Pretending

by lezzerlee



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Hospitals, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 04:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lezzerlee/pseuds/lezzerlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames comes very close to losing Arthur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Pretending

It doesn’t take being in a hospital, sitting beside the gray plastic bed with bleached sheets and machinery beeping and whirring around him. It doesn’t take seeing tubes protrude from too-pale skin and spots of blood leaking through gauze bandages. Eames has known since Helsinki, since Tokyo, since Belarus, since the moment it hurt to breathe when Arthur was in the room. But the hiss, the suctioning up and down of the breathing tube’s artificial lung, the constant high-pitched beep of the heart monitor, drives the idea home as he thinks over and over again _please wake up, please._

  
  
“Don’t ever do that again,” Eames murmurs as he kisses over bony knuckles and the newly formed calluses formed from gripping first a walker and now a cane. Arthur smiles at him and pulls his hand away only to slide it into Eames’ hair, petting down to the back of his neck. His skin is salty with sweat from the effort of walking as Eames kisses lightly the side of his throat, pressing against the taut ligament of his neck to nuzzle just below his ear. Eames settles to rest his head on Arthur’s chest, listening to him pull air into his lungs, reassured by the steady beat of his heart.  
  
Arthur doesn’t defend his actions, and he doesn’t reprimand Eames for his hypocrisy when he quickly and efficiently eliminated every man who had pointed a gun at Arthur and fired.  
  
“I won’t,” he says instead, stroking his fingers over Eames’ scalp, the fine hair catching underneath his fingernails before trailing down the line of his cheekbone and through the faint stubble on his jaw. He knows Eames will never believe him, and that Eames would never expect him to live up to the promise.  
  
For a moment, they can pretend.  
  
“I love you,” Eames whispers, lips ghosting over Arthur’s skin, eyelashes fluttering lightly. Arthur dips his head to press his lips to Eames’ hair. If he never woke up, they would never have another moment like this. Maybe Arthur means the words after all. Maybe they aren’t pretending.


End file.
